Influencer couple Katherine Smith and Benjamin Finlan have called it quits.
“After 11.5 years of loving, enduring, surviving, and growing side by side, Ben and I made the mutual decision earlier this year to end our romantic relationship,” Smith and Finlan wrote in a joint Instagram statement on Saturday, April 4. “We know this may come as a shock to many. For us, it isn’t. It’s something we’ve quietly grieved for quite some time.”
They added, “There is no scandal. No fracture. Just two people who have shared more in a decade than many do in a lifetime, quietly acknowledging that love can change shape.”
According to Finlan, he was unsure how to “walk away from the girl [he believed] saved” his life after he suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in 2018.
“You don’t. You carry it with you: the history, the resilience, the versions of yourselves that only existed because the other was there,” the statement added. “[We] are forever bonded by hospitals and hope, by youth and understanding, by battles fought and won. That doesn’t disappear just because the romance does.”
Finlan was allegedly attacked in London in 2018, resulting in a TBI — a “disruption in brain function caused by a blow, jolt or piercing injury to the head, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders. The Canadian influencer comatose for one week and underwent multiple surgeries to remove parts of his skull. After flying home to Canada nearly two months later, Finlan was hospitalized again.
“I developed something called ‘syndrome of the trephined’ followed by an infection in my brain and things went downhill fast,” he recalled to Patient Voice in 2023. “I lost everything I’d previously regained. I had a seizure at one point that was so bad, I broke my hip. I ended up needing over 65 surgeries across four years. It was surreal.”
Smith, then 25, became Finlan’s caretaker as he recovered from his severe injury. (Smith and Finlan were four years into their relationship at the time.)
“It’s so hard being a caregiver for your partner,” she told the outlet. “You don’t want to infantilize them, but there’s also this pressure to get everything right. It took some trial and error but we’ve found our routine and Ben has become incredibly independent.”
Smith and Finlan plan to remain friends after their breakup.
“We are still in each other’s corner. Still committed to each other’s happiness, health, and success. Just in a different way,” they concluded on Saturday. “Now, we can proudly say we are the best of friends, and always will be. We are forever grateful to the people who carried us through every season, who have supported us in every decision (including this one), and who have loved every version of us along the way.”
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